Gary Chalk
My Monday morning routine is to publish my latest Living Retired column. My wife Jan’s routine is to ask, “Gary, how on earth do you come up with such gobbledygook?” I explain that frequently the stories fall in my lap, or more recently, in my wallet; but actually, it didn’t fall in my wallet. This is what I mean…
I am a fan of drive-through automated teller machines (ATMs) at banks. You drive up, insert your bank card, press a few buttons, and grab your cash all without even having to get out of your car. But last week…
I pulled up to a bank ATM. No cars were in front of me, I thought it would be a breeze. I quickly inserted my bank card, entered my PIN, made some selections, and waited for the machine to dispense $200 in $20 bills. Right on the money, the ATM drawer opened, and the $20 bills slid into view. But when I reached for my cash, I realized my bank wasn’t giving me their bang for my buck: I could see my money. I could feel my money. I just couldn’t get my money to come out of the tray! The $20 bills were stuck in the ATM!
I stretched my arm as far as I could out the car window, but I still could not get a good grip on the bills, at least enough to yank them from the machine. I contorted my body to reach even further. Eventually, I managed to pull out six $20 bills. The rest were stuck. I needed a pair of needle-nose pliers!
The obvious thing to do was to open my car door and stand closer to the ATM to retrieve the rest of the $20 bills. I tried, but my car was too close to the ATM to swing the door open. Now what?
Oh no! In my rearview mirror I could see that not one, but now two cars had pulled up behind me. The drivers stared at me like I am an idiot. Hey wait: I AM AN IDIOT!
HONK! HONK! It’s the anxious driver in the second car.
RING! RING! It’s Jan. “Sorry Jan I can’t talk. Got money problems.”
I didn’t have a friggin’ clue what to do! Faster than you could say ‘a fool and his money are soon parted’ I experienced full-blown money anxiety!
HONK! HONK!! HONK!!!
I tried to reach out my car window to shake my fist at the honkers, but all that accomplished was bloodying my fingers smacking them against the ATM!
Thankfully, the driver on the horn gave up. He slowly drove backward away from the ATM, while he screamed something at me.
I could not get out of my car to capture the attention of the driver behind me to back up, so I did the next best thing: I put my foot on the brake and shifted into Reverse. WOW! That got her attention! HONK! HONK! HONK!
Eventually, the lady backed up enough so I could reposition my car to open the door and step out. Success. I stood at the ATM to get the rest of my money, but I didn’t bank on what happened next…
A message appeared on the ATM screen: ‘TIME EXPIRED.’ With that, the rest of my money disappeared, sucked back in the machine! I had some of my money, and no slip of paper of evidence of my incomplete transaction. NOW WHAT?!
I drove forward from the ATM and parked to go into the bank to speak with a teller.
When I reached the bank entrance, customers were waiting in line for it to open. I greeted them, “Good morning!” One man piped up, “We have been laughing for 10 minutes at some goofball frantically waving his arms and shaking his fist at the ATM.”
All I could say was, “What an idiot!”
Living Retired is written by humor columnist Gary Chalk.